Building a career at Bloomberg: A customized approach

At Bloomberg, we recognize the expertise employees bring from their wide-ranging career experiences. We believe there is no set career path, but rather that each employee can individualize their own journey.

As an experienced professional making the move to Bloomberg, you can expect your career growth to be multi-directional. You’ll have autonomy to explore the organization, and find a uniquely open environment as a result of our flat structure. 

To support employees, we ensure that growth is tailored to the individual. The company provides extensive access to tools and resources and self-guided programs, alongside opportunities to build your unique portfolio of development and leadership. Here, three tenured Bloomberg employees share how they’ve built and navigated their careers.

Nadia Humphreys, Head of Sustainable Finance Data Solutions

Nadia has been at Bloomberg for eight years and leads the Sustainable Finance Data Solutions team globally, focused on transforming how financial firms consume and use high quality ESG and climate data for investment strategies.

With fifteen years of industry experience, she was looking for a new challenge in her career. Her focus was on the impact she could make, not a specific title or team. As she explains, this kind of initiative is rewarded at Bloomberg. 

“Before I came to Bloomberg, my career ambitions were defined by the next rung on the ladder, the next title or promotion that I could achieve, a larger team to manage. 

I wanted to pivot and make a change that had more magnitude to it. Previously, I was servicing solely the needs of my company and I wanted to have a greater impact. I knew I could solve a wider array of problems, and Bloomberg actually offered me that opportunity. Once I was here, it became clear to me that certain individual contributor roles at Bloomberg translated into the same seniority and impact as management positions at other firms. 

I’ve had various roles at Bloomberg, all of which have given me valuable experience and the opportunity to learn and expand my skill sets, often from scratch. As a leader of the Regulation and Climate Product team for the Bloomberg Terminal, I worked with a team of product managers to build the Bloomberg Terminal’s presence in that space from the ground up. Our goal is to grow our influence and become an essential resource. I’ve recently focused on leading the Sustainable Data Solutions business within Enterprise Data Content, where I’ve expanded my responsibilities across the firm’s focuses while driving business growth.

To be honest, the work I’m doing now is like living a dream. Sustainable finance is an important and consequential area of our business, with immediate, real-world implications. In my role at Bloomberg, I have the ability to influence the direction of regulations and public policy, while also building solutions that are in the hands of thousands of investors who are now capable of making decisions using the data that I provide them.”

Jay Modi, Structured Products Data & Change/Automation Team Lead

Jay has been at Bloomberg for two years and leads a team that specializes in all aspects of data feeds for Structured Notes

After 18 years in banking, Jay was looking to apply his experience and passion for his work in a new way. 

 “I spent a good amount of my financial banking career within structured products. I was pretty lucky because I got to spend some time in London, spent a bit of time in Zurich, some time in India, and a full ten years in Manhattan/New York.

 Given my experience, I knew exactly how a bank operated all the way from FO->MO-BO. Moving to Bloomberg, I was coming to the other end of the spectrum so the interview process focused on where I could potentially fit in and where Bloomberg could see me coming into the firm, because it was a very different type of job that I’d had in the past.

 I’ll be honest, when I joined Bloomberg, even after using the Terminal for 18 years in banking, I was shocked how little I accessed within the functions. I used the same screens/fields within my past roles, but had no idea that Bloomberg was a wealth of knowledge for all different types of products and data. It probably took me around six months to fully understand what Bloomberg actually does, not just the day-to-day functions, but what they actually mean and how they fit into the bigger picture of my specific product.

 Any time someone opens a new chapter in their life, it’s going to be scary. But when you open a new chapter, you grow, you develop, you move forward. And people need to not be afraid of failing and ensure that they use the tools that are available to them to open the new chapter of whatever career they want to go into.

 Bloomberg wants you to be innovative. Bloomberg wants to hear your ideas. Where are we now? What do we want to build? What is your suggestion on how we can get there? 

 When I first joined, I was a bit wary about Bloomberg’s flat structure, coming from banks which are very regimented but I love how Bloomberg within a controlled fashion lets you be one’s “authentic self.” But I’ve seen it really opens the doors for people to be open and forthcoming with their ideas. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. But if it doesn’t work, let’s focus on what you learned from that idea and use that for the next idea and the idea afterwards. It’s a great environment for people who are creative, who want to grow, who want to kind of think outside the box.”

Dana El-Baltaji, Managing Editor for Credit, EMEA

Dana has been at Bloomberg for fourteen years and is a Managing Editor in Bloomberg News, working with a team of reporters who cover bonds, loans, and private credit. 

She saw an opportunity at Bloomberg and worked to evolve it into the career she’d been seeking. 

“I was living in Dubai, wanting to make the shift into financial journalism. I didn’t have a background in finance, but could see how other people who worked at Bloomberg developed their careers and succeeded. So, as I was starting my career at the company, I joined as an Islamic finance reporter and wanted to show that I could build coverage and be an asset to Bloomberg in the region. And that’s what happened. Once I was able to build our Islamic Finance coverage in the Middle East, I was considered for other roles, which is what I wanted.

Initially, it was a little daunting to work with so many news bureaus, all of which are staffed with experienced journalists. Suddenly I felt like I was in the middle of this pool of experts worldwide. Anyone who had anything to do with Islamic finance was part of my network. And that felt like an instant boost to my profile.

It was an incredible experience. I was accessing information on the Terminal, I was able to use the entire network. I started to meet people from South Africa, Nigeria, Brazil, London and New York, all while sitting at my desk in Dubai.

And it wasn’t a small thing. It felt empowering that when somebody heard about something in the world of Islamic finance, they would come to me and ask me questions about it. That was one of the ways that I gained knowledge. I would have conversations with people everywhere and they would tell me about things that were happening in their markets, and I would then start to dig deep into that. It was a beautiful experience, to be that connected.

I knew that it was up to me, whether or not this coverage was going to be a success. I came into the company with that intention, and was given all of those tools in order to make that happen.”